


Keepsakes

by anotetofollow



Series: Illustrated Fanfic Commissions [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Fluff, post-haven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 07:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12452751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow
Summary: Sera brings Cassandra an unexpected gift after Haven.Illustrated fanfic commission, with art by tumblr user @noctuaalba!Commissioned by the lovely Mytha!





	Keepsakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytha/gifts).



> A joint commission from me and @noctuaalba for Mytha - thanks so much for commissioning us! I adored writing this! <3

 

Cassandra sat back in her chair and rubbed at her eyes. The lists Leliana had been sending her were too much to take in all at once; people they had lost, supplies destroyed, units of troops missing since the avalanche. Numbers too large to think about.

Outside the window there was a constant low murmur of sound, even at this late hour. The remainder of the Inquisition forces were working night and day to make Skyhold habitable. Cassandra wanted to be there with them, not in this little room writing reports. What good was a report, after what they had faced?

A noise from behind her chair startled her. She stood, drawing her sword in readiness.

“Woah!” Sera said, putting her hands up in front of her. “Be careful with that. You’ll have someone’s eye out.”

“I apologise,” Cassandra sighed. She sheathed her blade quickly. “You took me by surprise.”

“Yeah. Remind me not to do that again.” Sera walked around to Cassandra’s desk and sat on top of it, heedless of the papers covering the surface.

Cassandra found she lacked the energy to protest. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked, sinking back into her chair.

“No. Other way around, sort of. Got something for you.” Sera reached into a pocket and pulled out a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. She handed it to Cassandra.

The Seeker took it from her, frowning with confusion. She unwrapped the layers of hessian carefully, and drew in a quick breath when she saw what was inside. Andraste’s flame, wrought in bronze and tarnished with age. “Where did you find this?”

“Chantry, back in Haven. You dropped it while we were making a run for it. Thought you might want it back.”

Cassandra found herself lost for words. She turned the symbol over in her hands, examining it for familiar scuffs and scratches. It was hers. The same votive symbol she had carried with her since childhood.

Eventually she found her tongue. “I had thought this lost.”

“I wanted to give it back sooner,” Sera said. “But you and the Herald and everyone else were too busy yelling at each other. Over each other.” She shrugged, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Didn’t fancy an earful of it.”

Cassandra stared at her blankly for a moment, then looked back to the bronze symbol in her cupped hands. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you?” Sera grinned. “Might be a start.”

“Of course. Thank you, Sera.”

“It’s alright. Things are important, aren’t they. Home when home’s not a place.”

Cassandra looked up at her. Sera’s eyes had gone distant in the candlelight. “What do you mean?”

“You know,” she said. “When homes are buildings things go wrong. People kick you out, or you’re not welcome any more, or a friggin’ archdemon smashes it up.” Sera picked up a piece of paper from Cassandra’s desk and began to shred it nimbly between her fingers. “Things you can keep. Things you can take with you. Make a home anywhere.”

“I… actually know what you mean,” Cassandra spoke quietly. “Haven was disastrous. This place is more defensible, but…”

“But when you’ve had your door kicked in by a dragon nowhere feels safe,” Sera finished. “Don’t worry, I get it. Can’t sleep since. Keep seeing its face.” She shuddered. “Ugly.”

Cassandra looked between Andraste’s symbol and the woman sitting on her desk. She had been sceptical when the Herald had brought the archer back to Haven - concerned, even - and had never given her much thought. There was something flippant about her, a lack of gravity that made Cassandra uncomfortable. Yet she had returned her symbol to her, and had put into words the fear which she herself could not articulate. Perhaps she had been too hasty in her judgement. It would not have been the first time.

“How did you know?” Cassandra asked. “That this was important to me, I mean?”

“You play with it,” Sera said quietly. “When things are bad. When you think no one’s looking. You sit in the Chantry and you take it out. I’ve seen you do it, loads of times.”

Cassandra was taken aback. Now that Sera had said it, it seemed obvious. She held the symbol for comfort, so often that she had stopped noticing it. “You’ve been watching me?” The words came out harder than she had intended, and she cringed inwardly at her own lack of tact.

Sera let out a short, irritated sigh. “I don’t get you,” she said, tearing at the paper in her hands with more fervour. “You’re what - a princess or something? That’s what Josephine said, right? That’s nobler than noble. But you don’t act like it. You get down in the dirt with the rest of us and you  _ help _ people. You don’t have to do it. So why do you?”

“I would argue that I  _ do _ have to,” Cassandra said. “‘Let the blade pass through the flesh, let my blood touch the ground, let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice.’ Andraste’s words. She fought for her people when they needed her. It is my responsibility to do the same.”

Sera looked at her, eyes wide and unblinking. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s it, isn’t it? I didn’t know there were words. Proper words for it. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell the Herald this whole time.” She laughed suddenly. “You’d make a good Jenny, if you relaxed a bit.”

Cassandra couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. “I think I might be a little too… conspicuous for your line of work.”

“Mmm. True,” Sera nodded. “You do stand out, don’t you? All silver and muscle and righteous.”

“Oh.” Cassandra felt herself flush.

“Anyway.” Sera let a hundred pieces of paper fall to the ground like snow and, stretching, hopped gracefully off the desk. “You’ve probably got big important Inquisition business to do, right? I won’t hang about.”

She began to walk away, but Cassandra reached out and took hold of her hand. Sera looked down at it, puzzled.

“Sera,” Cassandra said. “Thank you. Sincerely.”

“‘Sincerely’,” Sera repeated, grinning. “Dead formal, aren’t you?” She squeezed the Seeker’s hand warmly in her own, then let it go. “It’s no bother, yeah? Don’t work yourself too hard.”

She left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Cassandra turned back to her reports. She scanned over a few columns of numbers, but could not bring herself to focus on them. Instead her eyes fell on the scraps of paper scattered across the wooden floor. Without thinking, her hand went to the bronze symbol in her lap. Just for a moment, she smiled to herself.


End file.
